To see when the courses I am teaching go to WebAdvisor and do a search using the subject “Sociology” and the “Instructor’s Last Name” Evans

My Take on Sociology:

I became interested in sociology because I wanted to understand how and why the rules were different in different places. I lived in three different regions, the south, the midwest, and New England as a child and had to learn a slightly different set of rules for each place. It took me a while to realize this. I minored in sociology as an undergraduate, but it was primarily a way to expand what I was learning in my economics classes (a good idea). I ended up doing my graduate work in sociology because I was most interested in research from sociology. It helped me understand how the social system works and its effect on people. This is what makes it an interesting discipline for anyone regardless of your major.

C. Wright Mills described the value of sociology best when he coined the term the sociological imagination. His idea is that understanding the social system helps us understand our own lives and the lives of others. Since we are born into a particular society we don’t see the ways in which it influences our lives. Sociology helps us to understand the fuzzy division between ourselves as individuals and as people influenced by the broader culture and structure of our particular society. Paradoxically, understanding how society constrains us and influences our lives helps us make decisions that are more closely based on our own individual preferences.

This is a short video that I use in my online Introduction to Sociology course to get students into the topic.